'We are people of the Islands': translocal belonging among the ethnic Chinese of the Riau Islands

The Riau Islands Chinese are an anomaly in the study of Chinese Indonesians. For one, while many of their ethnic Chinese counterparts in other parts of Indonesia can no longer speak Chinese due to the New Order regime's assimilation policy, Chinese languages are alive and well in the Riau Islan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Asian ethnicity 2023-01, Vol.24 (1), p.108-131
Main Author: Setijadi, Charlotte
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Assimilation
Borders
Case studies
Chinese indonesians
Chinese languages
ethnic Chinese
Ethnic groups
Ethnic identity
Ethnicity
Ethnography
identity
Identity formation
Islands
local politics
Minority groups
National identity
Resilience
Riau Islands
Singapore
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Summary:The Riau Islands Chinese are an anomaly in the study of Chinese Indonesians. For one, while many of their ethnic Chinese counterparts in other parts of Indonesia can no longer speak Chinese due to the New Order regime's assimilation policy, Chinese languages are alive and well in the Riau Islands. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in 2017-2018, this paper seeks to understand the Riau Islands Chinese's cultural resilience and sense of belonging as a borderland ethnic minority. I argue that long-standing inter-Island and cross-border mobilities and cultural flows with Singapore have been central to the maintenance of Riau Islands Chinese identity. Utilising translocality as a theoretical framework to understand the processes of identity formation and place-making that transcend national borders, I contend that the case study of the Riau Islands Chinese challenges the conventional state-centric modes of analyses prevalent in the study of ethnic Chinese communities in Southeast Asia.
ISSN:1463-1369
1469-2953
DOI:10.1080/14631369.2022.2069082